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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Today's harvest is a little different than Monday's. In the herb department, dill stands in for the sage and basil that Thursday saw in prior weeks. Dill is commonly used to make a dressing for vegetables with yogurt. It can also be dried for later use by hanging upside down. In the carrot department, juane du doubs subs for napoli. This is a yellow carrot, which I should have more of soon. It can be eaten fresh but I like it better cooked. I usually dice it and then sauté it with other vegetables.

I'm still working on the final plantings for fall and winter. With a little luck I'll be done with those next week. Today I pulled all of the shallots to make way for frisee and spinach. Turnips are also on the list to be planted.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Cippolini onions, tomatoes, summer squash, romaine, sage, basil and a carrot or two make up the share today. The basil is a relatively bigger bunch like Thursday got a few weeks back. The onions will keep well if not used immediately. These are all of the onions I grew for the summer so just a taste, although there will also be shallots soon, and leeks in the fall for more allium flavor. Carrots continue to do poorly. The yield was terrible on this first planting that actually worked. I should have yellow carrots for Thursday as there are no more of the orange from this planting. Cucumbers are also slow for some unknown reason. I'm kind of spreading them around so I'm hoping within the next week or two everyone will see one or two. This is definitely not the glut we had last year. I'm not completely surprised at some of this. I've learned over the years that every year is different. This is the best beet year so far, and the squash has been quite good whereas last year it was terrible. I'm making notes, every year is a little different, and I think a little better.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

A crazy big load on the Bullitt this morning headed out to the farm. This afternoon is looking much more reasonable. The share is similar to Monday's although sage replaces beans since Thursday got beans two weeks ago and the sage needed to get cleaned up. Fresh sage is good for cooking but I also recommend it for tea, with honey.

I'm off to town to make the deliveries so I'll cut the post short by saying that it was a productive planting day and the last of the lettuce plantings is now in the ground, as well as the last greenhouse seeding of the season.

Monday, August 20, 2012

A big dose of summer squash this week, perhaps it's time to pull out the zucchini bread recipes, although fritters or hash might actually Use more squash. Last year squash was sparse but cucumbers were plentiful. This year the tables are turned, or so it seems. Tomatoes are starting to come on a little stronger as the first planting of green beans fades. Lettuce is a bit smaller this week, but nice small heads of Plato II romaine are in the share. A nice bunch of beets with their greens rounds out the share.

After last week's heat it's nice to have our NW weather back. Lots of planting is scheduled for this week so the transplants should appreciate it too.

Friday, August 17, 2012

I'm a bit late with the blog post, which I was hoping to get out yesterday. Harvest went smoothly in the morning, basically the same as Monday's, although I added basil. I did a big harvest of basil, partly due to the heat, but also so that folks could get at least one big (at least for SHF) batch for the season. I'll try to do the same for Monday folks in two weeks if the basil can hang on that long before another harvest.

In the afternoon I braved the heat and ended up being very productive. I was able to work up enough bed space to get a planting of fennel and radicchio in the ground. Even though it was probably 100 degrees (not ideal planting conditions) I think the plants were happy to get out of their little plugs and into the ground.

I did get very sweaty doing all of that work, but I kept on top of watering myself and was fine. Getting the plants in the ground made me a little late in leaving for deliveries. I was appreciating all of the shade on my bike ride back into town. My delivery route goes down highway 30, which is shaded by the west hills in the afternoon, perfect. Then I head in on Willamette which also has good tree cover for long stretches, as do Ainsworth, Vancouver, and TIllamook.

After deliveries I headed over to the Green Dragon in SE for a great Cargo Bike Roll Call. Super fun to see all of the different cargo bikes out, hang out with other folks who haul big loads on their bikes and talk to Liz Canning who is making a documentary about cargo bikes.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Once again it was hot. I'm not complaining, yet, but the August heat always makes seeding and planting the winter crops a little interesting. The share today is a really nice mix. The beans probably peaked today, which is great and means that the share has a good number of them. We pulled one of the two varieties of potato, French Fingerling, which had totally died back for some reason. The yield wasn't great, but they went into a really rough bed this spring (really just two trenches hacked out of the mud) and they're in a bit of a shady spot next to the lone hawthorne bordering the vegetable field. I spaced them out a bit so there are some larger ones this year and for the most part the ones that came out look really nice. Tomatoes are just starting so I put a couple of samples in each share. Zucchinis and Patty Pans continue to go strong, some folks got one, some the other. There's another head of Samantha lettuce and finally, a bit of an experiment in the onion department. These are Evergreen Hardy White onions, a scallion, that I planted last Fall because Kji had some extras. I just wanted to see what they would do but I didn't really intend to harvest them. There are just enough for everyone to try one.

Cucumbers are slowly starting. A few shares have one in the bag. The one on top is a lemon cuc, which has been the standard on the farm for a long time. The one on the bottom is an english cuc called Tyria that I've grow other places and I'm experimenting with. I only planted four plants so I'm not sure everyone will get one this year, but if they do well I'll continue with them next year. Even though they're a pretty big cucumber and the seed is super expensive, they're really tasty.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Today's share is the same as Monday's, except it also contains the first beans of the season and a sampling of one or two of the first cherry tomatoes. The beans look huge in this close up, but really they're small and supposed to be that way. The variety is a new one for me, Slenderette from Seeds from Italy. It looks like it might be a productive variety. I trialed direct seeding next to transplanted beans and the transplanted so far have produced more than twice as much, and they are much more even in their ripeness.

Fall and winter plantings continue. I've been doing a little work every day this week to get chicories and brassicas in the ground. Today a bit of lettuce and cilantro went in, both for late summer harvests.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Yep, the squash was a little outrageous after this weekend, and the basil needed another picking too. Parsley needed a bit of cleaning up so there's some in the share, along with lettuce and a few cippolini onions that are nearly full sized at this point.

It was a hot one on the farm today, but not terribly so. The tomato set looks good right now and the cucumbers are just starting to ripen. A few lucky share holders got a lemon cucumber today but there weren't nearly enough to go around. I'm hoping next week will be different.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The photo and share description is a bit late this week, but better late than never. Danny sent me this photo of the share: romaine lettuce, summer squash, basil and chard. I'm posting (or attempting to post) from Newport. My partner and I made it here to good cell service and a reliable power outlet this afternoon after riding our bikes from Portland, through Astoria and down the coast, camping all along the way. Kji will be harvesting tomorrow and I'll be back to the farm on Monday. We've been lucky with excellent weather, beautiful views and great camping spots. Two or three more days of riding and we'll be back.